


The Baker's Son

by betts



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol, Autochorrissexuality, Coda, Epilogue What Epilogue, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Mildly Dubious Consent, Multi, Polyamory, Post-Mockingjay, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Epilogue, Voyeurism, the author has a lot of feelings about bread ok
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-01
Updated: 2015-12-01
Packaged: 2018-05-04 03:45:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5319218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betts/pseuds/betts
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peeta still believed the best in people. Everyone had blood on their hands. Everyone had regrets. And everyone who sought forgiveness deserved it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Baker's Son

**Author's Note:**

> Anyway, here's the poly fix-it nobody asked for.
> 
> Alternate titles for this fic include "My Poor Poly Queer AF Heart Cannot Handle Love Triangles" and "ACE-SPEC!KATNISS IS SO IMPORTANT".

_All sorrows are less with bread._

—Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

* * *

The hatchet fell, slicing the pheasant’s head off, the thud of the knife muting the sound of mail dropping through the slot in the door.

Mail only came every other Tuesday.

The arrhythmic thumping of Peeta coming down the stairs too quickly reminded Katniss of bombs, pulled her out of the present and shoved her into the past. She spun around from the countertop, hatchet tight in her grip to see Peeta scooping up the envelopes at the foot of the stairs.

He tossed a couple of them on the table by the door and ripped open the one in his hand. She watched as he unfolded the letter, mouth stretching into a grin as he scanned it over.

When he reached the end, he folded it back and shoved it in his pocket, then took his jacket from the peg on the door and called out, “Gotta run an errand!”

Katniss set the hatchet on the counter and wiped her hands on a towel. “Where are you going?”

“The market.” He opened the door and paused in the threshold, smiling back at her with the excitement and innocence of the young boy he used to be. The open door let in the chill of early autumn.

The market had been the first storefront to open in the reconstruction of District 12. Katniss hadn’t been there yet, had let Peeta run their errands for them. The first day he brought home flour and yeast, smiling the same way he was now, had been the moment reality settled—the war had really ended. They were safe. They were home.

“Will you be back in time for supper?” Katniss asked.

“Definitely,” Peeta said, followed by, “Love you!” and closed the door behind him.

Katniss padded over to the door and watched Peeta limp down the street toward town, the top of the letter hanging out of his pocket. She glanced at the table and picked up the empty envelope—handwritten, addressed to Peeta, with no return address. The postmark read _District 2_.

⇶

Cement trucks. Bricklayers. Cranes. Architects. Engineers. Plumbers. Hordes of people and resources collaborating together to rebuild District 12. Peeta was so happy he could burst.

He rushed through the town circle, bustling with people, signs of life, like watching blades of grass grow through the cracks of rubble. People smiling. Laughing. Making friends. People from all over, not just District 12.

Many would nod a good afternoon to him and he’d smile back and wave. He made his way down the winding road and stopped at a mostly finished building, scaffolding creeping up the sides, the whir and rumble of power tools deafening.

He waited at the bottom of a tall ladder, looking toward the sunny sky so that he had to put a hand up to shield his eyes.

Gale spotted him from the top where he’d been roofing the building, and smiled wide before climbing down. As soon as he hit the ground, he held out a hand for Peeta to shake, but Peeta pulled him into a hug instead.

“It’s great to see you again,” Peeta said, letting go. His face hurt from smiling. He hadn’t been this happy since he baked his first loaf of bread after the war.

Gale laughed, a hollow sound. He had the same shadow behind his eyes that Katniss did. “I didn’t think you’d come.” He shrugged up his shoulders, balled his hands into the pockets of his jumpsuit, wouldn’t meet Peeta’s eyes.

“But I did.” Peeta still believed the best in people. Everyone had blood on their hands. Everyone had regrets. And everyone who sought forgiveness deserved it.

“Want to see what we’re working on?” Gale asked, hopeful.

Peeta nodded and followed him into the building. Before, it had been a peacekeeper barrack. Now, the small space was restructured with empty shelves floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall, maple wood shining with new stain.

“Is this…” Peeta asked, awed.

“A library,” Gale glanced at him, smiling shyly. Much of his bravado had faded in their few years of peace.

“We never had a library.”

“They’ve begun a literacy and education initiative. Every District will get a library, fully stocked with old books and new, nothing censored. And a brand new schoolhouse.” Gale looked around the space with the same look he used to give Katniss. Peeta understood: this was Gale’s redemption. Spreading the gospel of the deceased throughout Panem in the only way he could, by building safe spaces for the voices of the once-voiceless.

Peeta came here to give Gale the opportunity to explain himself. They’d crossed paths months ago, a couple weeks after the market had first opened. Gale, after he completed his work in District 2, joined the reconstruction team, was the first volunteer to rebuild District 12.

Gale had come back home for two days to scope out the damage and take notes, bring it back to District 2 and help ready a plan. Peeta, despite his apprehension, told Gale to write him when he’d be returning long-term, where he’d like to meet, and they could talk when they had more time.

Peeta prepared to listen with an open mind and make amends. He’d spent countless hours in his garden thinking about this moment, about Gale and the war, churning over what he knew, his concrete memories. He decided not to tell Katniss about it, not yet, not until he’d heard Gale’s peace. But Gale had never been one for words where actions were better suited. Now that Peeta was here, standing in physical proof of Gale's remorse, he realized no words were needed.  

“This is amazing, Gale.” Peeta squeezed Gale’s shoulder, catching his gaze and holding it for a beat too long.

Gale looked away but leaned minutely into the touch. A flicker of a genuine smile crossed his face and he asked, “How about lunch?”

⇶

“Need anything from the market?” Peeta asked. He leaned down and kissed Katniss’s cheek, his jacket draped over his arm.

“You already went this week. Twice. The second time, you didn’t buy anything,” Katniss said, looking up from her book.

“I know, I’m just going stir-crazy is all. I finished the work in the garden for today and I want to go talk to people. Make friends. Be social.”

He swung his jacket on while Katniss asked, “Can I come?”

Peeta froze while straightening his collar. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

“Why?” She waited for him to call her bluff. It would take an army to get her to go back. Every dilapidated inch of reminded her of Prim.

“Lots of people. Noise. Jackhammers that sound like machine guns.”

“But you’re fine with it,” Katniss argued, dog-earing her page and getting up from the sofa.

“I’ve gotten used to it. We shouldn’t risk it with you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It’s just—”

“No, I want to know where you’re going. Who wrote you that letter?” The envelope had disappeared from the table after Peeta returned home two weeks ago. The post had already come again and another had not replaced it, but Peeta’s suspicious behavior continued.

Peeta wouldn’t lie to her. Their relationship hinged on honesty—Peeta’s memories, while mostly stable, were still intermittent and haphazard at times, but every day he healed a little more.

Katniss just got worse over time: the nightmares, dissociative episodes, panic attacks. Every day was more of a struggle than the day before it.

And Katniss thought—

She didn’t know what to think. She couldn’t figure out why Peeta was treating her like this, distancing himself when she needed him. Here.

Instead of answering, Peeta asked, “Do you trust me?”

Katniss hesitated. She did. With every shattered piece of her. “Yes.”

“Then trust me with this.” He held her face in his hands, thumbed over her lip and leaned in to kiss her gently. She didn’t kiss back. “Please.”

“Fine,” she relented, and grabbed up her book before falling back on the couch. “But bring me back some chocolate.”

⇶

“So you and Katniss…” Gale began, breaking into one of the rolls Peeta brought him.

They sat on the steps of the old courthouse, still in ruin, looking out toward the town circle. In the couple days Peeta had been absent, they’d placed a memorial in the center, an onyx obelisk etched with the names of the fallen.

“What about me and Katniss?” Peeta asked. Even though they had all the space in the world on those steps, their thighs touched.

Peeta had always been a hands-on person. This was how Peeta let Gale know that everything was good—a brush of shoulders here, a pat on the back there. Comfortable. Simple. Reassuring.

“You’re...with her,” Gale said, looking away and tearing off a large bite of bread roll.

Peeta laughed to hide the guilty feeling resting at the pit of his stomach. “I mean, as much as a person can be _with_ Katniss.”

Gale huffed a laugh of solidarity in return. They hadn’t discussed Katniss yet, despite having met now a half-dozen times. They often walked together through the District, talking and getting reacquainted without the naivety of childhood or the pressures of war surrounding them. They never discussed the past, only the present and future.

Peeta had been waiting for the day Gale would mention Katniss, could feel the question rolling around in his mind, haunting him. And maybe Peeta had been selfish for not bringing it up, for not quieting the dull roar of remorse that manifested itself in Gale's tensed shoulders and gaunt expression.

Gale’s smile faded. He stared at the bread in his hands and said, quiet, “You know what I mean. You’re—”

Peeta reached up and brushed a crumb off of Gale’s bottom lip. “It’s complicated.”

⇶

Katniss carried the oil lamp up the stairs, finished book in hand to put away before bed. Peeta had fallen asleep hours ago, always went down with the sun and woke up before it the next morning; a habit of a lifetime of baker’s work. On her good days, Katniss enjoyed the sweet quiet of night—flickering fireflies in summer and the shining glisten of snowfall in winter. She enjoyed sleeping in and waking up to the smell of bread baking in the kitchen below, going downstairs to find the day’s vegetables already picked in a basket by the door. Peeta often did more by noon than most people did in an entire day.

She stood in the hallway, tempted to return to her own room so as not to disturb Peeta’s sleep, or crawl in bed with him instead. She looked in on him, sleeping shirtless, covers pulled up to his exposed stomach. The open window let in the breeze of an unseasonably warm night.

She blew out the lamp and entered his room, lifted the covers and crawled in beside him. He woke just enough to curl around her, bury his face in her neck and place a soft, open-mouthed kiss against it.

He ran a hand under her shirt, over the map of burn scars around her stomach. When they moved in, she had taken down all the mirrors in the house; Peeta didn’t have to ask why. She never let him see her naked, either, refused to look down at her own body when she bathed. Every hideous mound of scar tissue reminded her of all she’d lost.

She pulled Peeta’s hand to the small of her back, unscarred, and turned toward him until their limbs tangled together. Peeta’s body was soft and warm under her touch, his prosthetic running hotter than the rest of him. He’d gained back the barest ounce of pudge he’d had before the Games, years of sneaking bakery cakes, but his shoulders were still broad from laboring in their garden, from kneading dough and carrying barrels of supplies in from town.

He was beautiful; he’d always been so beautiful.

Katniss kissed his forehead, trailed kisses down to his mouth. Sleepy, he met hers, a wrinkle creasing his forehead as he slowly woke. She deepened the kiss, parted her lips, tasted the forever-sweet tongue of a baker’s son against her own.

She could feel his hardness against her hip, the groggy rutting of his movements, the low moans escaping him.

Peeta trailed kisses down her neck, stopping at the beginning of the scars before coming back up. He muttered, “What do you—”

Katniss took his hand from her back and guided it to himself. He palmed his erection and bit his lip.

“You. I want to watch you,” Katniss replied.

This was what she liked. This was all that she liked.

⇶

“So...you two have never…” Gale said, side-arming a rock into the river. It skipped four times before sinking.

“Nope,” Peeta replied, attempting to skip his own rock, but it dropped into the water with a thunk. Gale stood in front of him, his back to Peeta. This conversation was easier not looking at one another anyway.

“I don’t want to be nosy or anything, but is it an attraction issue? Is she...I mean, are you…”

Peeta snorted a laugh. They’d all been through hell together and come out the other side. Putting labels on sex and relationships seemed so...petty.

“As far as I can tell, she only likes kissing.” Peeta flung another rock into the river. “And watching.”

Gale stopped and turned around. “Watching?”

He shouldn’t be talking about Katniss behind her back, but every time he’d tried to bring it up to her, she would change the subject or get upset and grow distant. Peeta didn’t want to do anything that would make her uncomfortable, didn’t want to press any boundaries, but he still wanted—

He just wanted.

“Yep,” Peeta replied, thumbing over the smooth rock in his hand. “It’s not a problem, really. It’s just that sometimes…”

He looked up from his hands to find Gale in front of him, close, the waning afternoon sun filtering through the trees and casting yellow light onto his sharp features. Peeta had noticed Gale’s handsomeness before, of course, but he’d always been too wrapped up in his own resentment and envy, too blind with immaturity. He couldn’t feel things like resentment or envy anymore, though; it had all been replaced by gratitude and acceptance, working through bigger problems.

Katniss never wanted to work through her problems. She wanted to drown in them. Peeta was so lost.

“Sometimes what?” Gale asked. His eyes flicked down to Peeta’s lips.

“Sometimes I want...things.” Peeta’s voice wavered. “Things are important to me. To how I...express things.”

Gale smiled. One of his real ones, the kind that dug little divots beside his lips, put crinkles in the corners of his eyes. They were rare, but they were becoming less rare, the more time they spent together.

“Things are important to how you express things,” he repeated.

“You know what I mean.”

Gale furrowed his brow in thought. “No, I don’t think I do.”

Peeta sighed. “I want to have sex, alright?” Despite his embarrassment, he felt a weight lift from his shoulders.

Gale touched the rock in Peeta’s hand with two fingers, let his other fingers skate against Peeta’s palm. “So why don’t you?”

“Because Katniss—”

Gale smiled again. Shy this time, but assured. “I don’t mean with Katniss.”

Peeta hesitated, still unsure where he stood with Katniss, in a shallow way. They loved each other no matter what, and nothing in the world could break or diminish what they had, but that didn’t mean they were _in_ love, necessarily. Peeta didn’t have any words for what they were to each other. They had an unshakeable bond. Soulmates, maybe, if he believed in that. “But Katniss…”

“Doesn’t get to make your decisions for you,” Gale said. He took Peeta’s hand in his own and lifted his other to thumb across Peeta’s cheekbone. His hands were big, rough, warm. Peeta tried not to imagine how they’d feel on his body.

Peeta took Gale’s hand from his face, held them together in his own. He felt guilty enough just befriending Gale without Katniss’s knowledge. Touching him, being touched by him crossed a line that Peeta didn’t know had been drawn.

“I still need to talk to her about it.” Peeta let his gaze drop to their hands. “About you.”

“You mean she doesn’t know...about us?”

 _About us_. Intimate. Honest. It put a fluttering sensation in Peeta’s stomach.

“She’s not well, Gale. I didn’t think we’d keep seeing each other like this, and I didn’t want to upset her, but I didn’t want to stop seeing you, either.”

Gale nodded. “So you’ll talk to her.”

“Yeah.” Peeta agreed, letting go of Gale’s hands and pocketing his own along with the rock he never skipped. “I’ll talk to her.”

⇶

Katniss padded downstairs wrapped in a blanket that trailed behind her several steps. The temperature had finally dropped, but Peeta hadn’t turned on the furnace yet. She reached the bottom of the stairs and found no bread on the table, nor harvest vegetables by the door, nor any sign that Peeta had woken, other than his empty bed.

“Peeta?” she called. Her voice echoed in the big, cold house.

“In here,” Peeta replied.

She followed his voice, blanket catching on a stool and knocking it over. She didn’t bother picking it up.

She found him in the den, knees tucked to his chest in the sill of the bay window. It looked out over his garden, now plucked free of its yield, empty green stalks and shoots whitened by the morning frost.

He wore only a threadbare pair of sleep pants.

Bad day, then.

“Peeta,” Katniss said, taking the blanket from her shoulders and wrapping it around him. “You must be freezing.”

She settled in beside him on the bench, holding him. His body felt like ice.

“I love you,” he said, still staring out the window. Sometimes he said it like he had to remind himself. Sometimes, a simple greeting or goodbye. Now, it was an assertion, a declarative statement.

“I love you too,” Katniss replied, and placed a kiss on his shoulder.

He looked at her. There was always a split second when their eyes met that he hesitated, habitually and forcefully recalibrating his own mind. “Are you in love with me?”

“Of course—”

“Don’t lie. I need to know the truth.”

“It’s not a lie,” Katniss said, forcing herself to stay calm, stay present. She flew off the handle too often anymore, threw the nice things they owned in fits of rage. She didn’t want nice things sometimes.

“But it’s not the truth.”

She hesitated, playing with an errant blue thread pulled out of the corner of the blanket. “I don’t know what it means.”

“To be in love?”

“It’s not you. I love what I feel for you, but I don’t want to feel anything more or different. I like what we have. What we are.” When Peeta didn’t reply, she added, “I’m sorry—”

“Don’t be.” Peeta took her hand from the blanket and held it in his. “I love you for who you are. I just...needed to know.” He pulled her hand to his mouth and kissed it, trailed his lips across her warped, battered knuckles, her calluses and smattering of ember scars.

⇶

Elk tonight. A welcome change from pheasant. They sat across from each other at their dining room table, silent as they always were. The silences between he and Gale were rare and warm. They could talk for hours. And he could make Gale laugh, head thrown back, condensation clouding in front of him in the cold afternoon air.

Peeta shouldn’t compare. Katniss’s quiet companionship was as comfortable as being alone, and he felt grateful to have that kind of closeness with someone. He couldn’t imagine living without it.

But the thing about being alone was that it tended to get lonely, too.

Peeta shuffled the grilled elk around on his plate. He cleared his throat and dove into the topic on his mind: “Tell me about Gale.”

Katniss scoffed, one foot on her chair, chin propped on her knee, hair falling around her face in long waves. She wore his clothes. Rather, they traded clothes so frequently that their closet was just a shared wardrobe anymore.

“He’s a murderer. Nothing more to it.”

Peeta stared at her, fork poised in his hand. “Have you changed since the war ended, Katniss?”

“Of course I have. We all have.”

“Then what makes you think Gale hasn’t?”

“It’s different. He killed Prim.” So matter-of-fact, as black and white as Peeta had been about Katniss after the brainwashing. Gale is a murderer: a conditioned response, the negative stimulus being Prim’s death.

“Was he holding the gun that shot her?”

Katniss stared at him, cold, every bit the ruthless Mockingjay that hid beneath her day-to-day facade. “He aided in the bombing that killed her.”

“You aided in killings too, and nobody’s calling you a murderer.” Peeta stood and picked up his plate, food only half-eaten. “They call you a hero.”

⇶

They slept in separate bedrooms. More accurately, stayed in separate bedrooms. Katniss didn’t sleep. She lay awake until the first watery light of dawn, listened as Peeta stirred and woke. She could hear his bare feet padding across the hardwood floor, dressing for the day, shaving, brushing his teeth, making his way downstairs.

Silence for a while, the thumping of kneading dough, then the loud metal squeak of the oven door. The clap, clap, clap of a cloud of flour off Peeta’s hands. The back door opening and closing, Peeta off to tend to the garden while the bread baked.

Every day. Like clockwork.

Katniss got out of bed and dressed, watched Peeta out her window. The harvest was almost over, and Peeta had begun spending half his morning work hours preparing the garden for the coming year, half jarring their remaining vegetables.

He quit early this morning, and Katniss tracked his movements through the house as he took the bread from the oven, packed up for the trek to the market, and left the house.

Katniss bounded down the stairs and watched out the window until he made it to the end of the road. Then she put on his other jacket—baggy on her frame, a hood to cover her—and followed him.

⇶

Peeta stopped at the market to drop off three pheasants, a couple jars of green beans and beets, and five loaves of bread. He didn’t have to sell their excess food for income—they had enough money, enough food. They didn’t need to get greedy.

The clerk happily accepted his donation and slipped him a small bag of chocolates for Katniss. He thanked her and pocketed them before heading into town.

He stopped by at his family’s bakery since it was still early—Gale tended to sleep in as late as Katniss. He toed at the rubble, sat on a stack of bricks that looked onto the warped, useless hearth. One day, in a year or two maybe, he’d get Gale to help him rebuild it. Open the doors once more to District 12. Bake and decorate cakes for birthdays and anniversaries and weddings. Sweet rolls to have with breakfast and loaves of bread for dinner. He’d get to know everyone, the way he used to. He’d be part of a community again.

He heard rustling to his left, the sound of footsteps on dried leaves and frozen ground. The reconstruction had yet to make it to this area, so people rarely came by.

“Hello?” he called. No answer. He checked his watch and, seeing he was running late, climbed with a small amount of difficulty out of the ruins of the bakery.

When he made it to the library, Gale was shelving books. Boxes upon boxes had begun arriving, filled with books whose spines had pieces of colored tape on them. Instructions came with the boxes on how to maintain an efficient filing system.

Peeta and Gale worked together on it, long afternoons talking, thumbing through books, emptying boxes and filling the shelves. Gale hugged him when he saw him, big strong body holding him tight for longer than a simple hello hug.

Once the renovations had been completed on the building, Gale stopped wearing workman’s clothes and started wearing big sweaters with sleeves that he rolled up to his elbows, pants that flattered his...Peeta tried his best not to pay attention to these things but when Gale shelved books on standing on ladders, such a feat was incredibly taxing. Peeta only had so much willpower.

Gale pulled away and held him at the shoulders, smiling. “We’re officially on fiction.” Peeta didn’t even need to say anything to make him smile anymore—he did it freely now. The sight made Peeta ache in a good way. Gale pulled a handful of books out of a box and added, “I’ve never read any fiction. Have you?”

“Never,” Peeta replied, filling his arms with books too. “We have a few books at the house but I’ve never thought to read them. Katniss does, though. Reads all the time.” He checked the spine of a hardback and slid it on a shelf. “Just...always seemed like something other Districts had, not us, you know?”

He looked up to see Gale staring at him, crooked smile on his face, a single dimple in his cheek.

It hit him so hard, Peeta nearly dropped the books. The feeling was familiar, like he had felt it before but the tracker-jacker torture had taken it away. But not quite, because those memories, when they resurfaced, gave him a sense that he’d found another piece of a puzzle.

This—the way Gale looked at him, touched him, made him feel appreciated and wanted—was new, a twin of what he felt for Katniss, but not exactly the same.

Before he could fully process the thought, booted footsteps in the entryway interrupted him.

Katniss entered, arms across her chest. “I hate to interrupt, but I’d like to know what’s going on here.”

⇶

Peeta looked at Katniss the way she imagined he looked every time he got caught stealing desserts as a child.

Gale looked—she didn’t want to look at Gale.

She wasn’t surprised. Nothing could surprise her anymore. But there was an echo of hurt, betrayal. When neither of them spoke, she added, “Why are you spending your time with a murderer, Peeta?”

Peeta’s face hardened from guilty to stern. “He’s not a murderer, Katniss. He’s my friend.” Katniss didn’t miss the way Gale’s eyes darted to Peeta in surprise. A new development, then. “He used to be your friend too.”

“Excuse me for severing ties with people who killed my loved ones.”

Peeta set his stack of books down on a table. Katniss glanced around for the first time. She was surrounded on all sides by mostly empty shelves, the room lit by a series of high skylights letting in the early morning sun.

“How many loved ones do you think you’ve killed for the sake of war? Do you want all those people’s families to hate you forever?” Peeta asked.

“Yes,” Katniss replied.

Peeta opened his mouth to reply, but fell silent.

“Katniss…” Gale began. She hadn’t heard his voice in years. It sounded like home, like long hours in the forest watching the sun pass over them, waiting for animals to wander into their path.

She met his gaze. Without looking a day older than when she last saw him, he’d grown ancient. If Katniss owned any mirrors, she guessed she would look the same. Despite her best effort, she felt comforted seeing him in plainclothes, no longer a soldier or even a hunter. Just a man cleaning up the mess he had a hand in creating.

Katniss’s shoulders dropped, face softening. “Peeta, I don’t think you should be spending time with him.”

A rare flicker of anger crossed Peeta’s otherwise angelic features. “You don’t get to decide that for me.” He defended himself so infrequently that it took her a long moment to process what he’d said. Before she could reply, he added, “We may have survived, Katniss, but we’re not really living. We’re hiding.”

“I’m not enough for you?” Katniss asked, hurt. Her voice sounded small to her own ears.

Peeta hesitated, then glanced at Gale, who gave him a small nod of support. “No, it’s that I’m not enough for you. I’ve never been enough for you.”

Katniss opened her mouth to interrupt, but he continued, “No, just listen for once. It’s always felt like something was missing between us, right? I thought it was something I could live with, or figure out later, find the missing piece when things were better. But things aren’t getting better. This is it, this is our life, and maybe what’s missing isn’t going to heal itself with time.” Peeta took a breath and steeled himself, then concluded, “Maybe what’s missing is a person.”

“What are you saying?” Katniss asked.

“I’m saying Gale has always loved you and so have I. And now Gale and I have each other too.”

Katniss’s mind wasn’t what it used to be, but what they were implying—

“It’s a different world now,” Gale said, thumbing absently over the spine of a book. “There’s no reason this can’t work out.”

A flare of anger erupted over her, unable to keep it bitten back this time. “Yes, there is. You’re a monster.”

Gale’s perpetually stoic demeanor slowly crumbled, and he set down his book, jaw clenched. “I’m not a soldier anymore, Katniss. I’m a worker. I fix the things I helped break.” He looked at her again, malicious this time. “What do _you_ do?”

The question hit her like a punch to the gut. “I get by. I’m sorry if that’s not good enough for you.”

“Guys!” Peeta interrupted. “This isn’t productive. Katniss, we’re asking for your consideration. Your forgiveness.”

“I can’t forgive someone who never apologized,” Katniss replied.

“There is no apology great enough,” Gale said. “So I’m working to rebuild our home. Her home, the world she should have grown up in. The world she deserved.”

A lump rose in Katniss’s throat. She shook her head. “You don’t believe that.”

Gale kept her gaze. “I’m not the boy you used to know. Who I was in the war isn’t who I am now. That man, that soldier, died with Prim. I promise you.”

Katniss’s voice came out thin, wavering, “Your promise is worthless.”

“Maybe.” Gale nodded. “But it’s all I have to offer.”

Katniss blinked and a tear crested over, falling down her face. She wiped it away hurriedly with the back of her hand. “I have to go.”

“Katniss,” Peeta said, stepping forward and reaching out.

Katniss held up a hand. “Just...give me some time to think, okay?” Before either of them could stop her, she lifted her hood and left.

⇶

Peeta woke up just enough to slide over when Katniss crawled into bed; thin, strong body draping around him. He awoke more fully at the sting of whiskey hitting his nostrils.

Before he could wake completely and ask about it, a hand dove into his shorts. His eyes shot open and he took Katniss’s wrist, pulling it away from him.

“What are you doing?”

“What you want from me,” Katniss slurred. They didn’t have any liquor in the house—Katniss must have broken into Haymitch’s while he was visiting Effie.

“I don’t want that from you,” Peeta said. He bit his tongue. That didn’t come out right.

Katniss scoffed a half-laugh. “Right. You want it from Gale now.”

“This isn’t about what I want. This is about what you want.”

“And what do I want?”

Peeta shook his head. “I don’t know, and I’m tired of guessing. So just tell me.”

Katniss lay silent. Peeta put her hand over his heart so she could feel it beat against her palm. For her. It only ever beat for her.

“I only know what I don’t want,” Katniss muttered.

“So tell me what you don’t want.”

“I don’t want to be touched...like that. But I want something. The thing that’s missing.”

In the flickering lamplight, Peeta could see Katniss's eyes cloud with tears, glassy in the reflection of the flame.

“I’m sorry,” she continued, voice cracking. “You need touch the way I don’t.”

“I don’t need it. I want it. Sometimes.”

“And I can’t give it to you. I’m—” She swallowed, thick. “They broke me. I’m broken.”

“You’re not broken.” Peeta kissed her, lips salted with fallen tears. “I love you for everything you are today and everything you might be tomorrow. I’d live my entire life without being touched again if you asked it of me.”

Katniss shook her head. “But I don’t want to ask that of you.”

“And I don’t want you to compromise who you are.”

Katniss laughed, an empty sound. “So you think Gale is what’s missing.”

Peeta thumbed a tear off her cheek. “I think I’m willing to try it. And I think he is too.”

They fell silent, minutes stretching so long that Peeta drifted off again.

The next morning, Katniss entered the kitchen while Peeta was busy pulling bread from the oven, a solid two hours earlier than she usually woke. She was still in sleepwear, braided hair mussed, the sleeves of Peeta’s sweater covering her hands and balled up in her fists. But she stood dignified, the way she did before giving an impassioned speech.

He stared at her, hearthstone hot in his mitted grip.

“I think Gale should move in with us for a while,” she said with a brusque nod, like it was her idea, and left again.

Peeta slid the stone onto the counter and turned off the oven, nearly forgetting his coat on his way out the front door.

⇶

Gale arrived with the first snowfall.

Katniss watched as Peeta limped around the house in a frenzy, cleaning and readying the guest bedroom. The smell of dinner wafted through the space—elk steak sizzling, three different kinds of dinner rolls, stewed vegetables. They even broke out the nice cheese. It was a feast, a peace offering.

The doorbell rang and Peeta called, “I’ll get it!” but Katniss was already at the door.

She opened it to find Gale, a large pack on his shoulders and a box in his hands, clumps of snow in his hair and eyelashes, nose and ears pink with the new cold. Katniss smiled before realizing it, then forced it back down.

Peeta met them in the foyer.

“May I come in?” Gale asked.

Katniss stepped aside, and Peeta hurried to help Gale with the box.

“What’s this?” he asked, setting it on the table by the door. Gale let the pack fall from his shoulders to set aside, and opened the box.

“Gifts,” he said. “Well, sort of.” He pulled out a book and handed it to Katniss. “I thought you might like it. But it’s the library’s—you have to return it in a couple weeks.”

Katniss tucked it to her chest and held it. “Thank you,” she said, quiet, unsure what else to say.

Gale pulled a bottle of wine out of the box and handed it to her also. “My contribution to dinner.”

Katniss’s eyes went wide as she inspected the bottle. She hadn’t had wine since the Quarter Quell. “Gale, this must have cost a fortune.”

“It’s worth it, trust me.” He gestured the rest of the box to Peeta and added, “And this is my contribution to dessert.”

Peeta and Katniss peered inside. The box contained two different kinds of sugar, a carton of eggs, a bottle of milk, a slab of butter, and three colors of food dye.

Katniss risked a glance at Peeta, whose mouth hung open, eyes rimming red and glazing over, speechless. He jumped into Gale’s arms, burying his face in his neck. Gale held him so tight that he almost lifted Peeta off the ground.

Several seconds ticked by before Katniss realized she was smiling again. She didn’t force it down this time.

⇶

They settled into an easy routine: Peeta woke before sunrise, made his bread, did all his morning work, and prepared the day’s lunches for Gale and Katniss. Gale woke a couple hours later, ate elk jerky and fried eggs for breakfast that Peeta cooked. And sweet rolls, too, now that they had sugar. They talked over food, quiet so as not to wake Katniss. After Gale left for work, Katniss would stir around noon to go hunt. Peeta spent the rest of the day preparing dinner and doing the household chores, and Katniss and Gale made it home around the same time so they could all sit down together and eat.

Sundays were their lazy days, where Katniss would stay in sleep clothes and read all day; Peeta, always restless, would bake cakes and heat chocolate with milk over the stove for all of them. Gale pestered him in the kitchen, sneaking fingerfuls of cookie dough or icing when Peeta pretended not to be looking.

The house had been silent for so long, but Gale brought them music to play on the stereo. Among the music there was always laughter, warming the once cold rooms and hallways better than any furnace.

On a Sunday covered in snow, Peeta sat on the countertop stirring a bowl of icing. Gale leaned against the island across from him, eyeing the bowl.

“You can’t have any,” Peeta told him. “It’s for the cake.”

“But I’m hungry now.”

“Icing won’t help with that. It’s just sugar and milk.”

“But I want it.” Gale shot him his pitiful sad eyes that made Peeta relent to anything he asked for. Peeta swore he used to have better willpower.

He clutched the bowl to his chest. “You have to wait.”

“What if I just…” Gale reached out and tried to grab the bowl away.

Peeta laughed and held it tighter. “No! It’s not ready.”

Gale stepped closer, not letting go, settling between Peeta’s legs. “But…” He took his index finger and hovered over the bowl, challenging Peeta to stop him.

“Fine,” Peeta relented, and scooped a finger in the icing. He smeared it over the tip of Gale’s nose. “It’s all yours.”

Gale laughed. It was Peeta’s favorite sound.

Gale’s hand burned on Peeta’s thigh. He was so close. He always stood so close...

“Will you two kiss already?” Katniss said, leaning against the threshold. “The tension is killing me.”

They turned to look at her.

“Wait, really?” Peeta asked.

“Really,” Katniss said, and gestured a hand between them. “Go ahead.”

Gale turned back to Peeta, the dollop of icing still on his nose. Before he lost his nerve, Peeta leaned forward and licked it off of him. Gale followed the movement with his lips, meeting together before opening them and licking the sugar off Peeta’s tongue.

Gale kissed him like he’d been starving for it, hands on the back of Peeta’s neck. Peeta set the bowl aside and pulled him closer, bracketing Gale’s hips with his thighs, fisting his sweater in his hands. Kissing Gale felt so much different than kissing Katniss. Katniss had a small, delicate mouth. She moved lightly, intuitively; always reacting to his reactions, like a game. Gale’s mouth was big and demanding, stubble scraping across Peeta’s jaw. He took what he wanted, and Peeta’s heart fluttered at the thought that Katniss had known this feeling too, had known Gale this way.

Peeta enjoyed sharing the things he loved. It always made them better, when someone else could love them too.

When they broke apart, Katniss was gone.

⇶

Dinner that night was more tense than the all the preceding weeks had been combined.

Katniss found it amusing. And, oddly, fun. She’d almost forgotten fun existed until Gale moved in. She’d definitely forgotten how fun Peeta and Gale both were, separately. Together they were a whirlwind too excitable to be contained.

But now that Katniss had opened the floodgates, they both sat silent and pensive like she’d put them in time-out. Every time their eyes met, a blush spread across Peeta’s face. Every time their hands brushed, the blush grew brighter.

Fun. This was definitely fun.

Watching Peeta and Gale kiss wasn’t anything like she’d expected. She feared she would get jealous or angry, but instead she’d been overcome with happiness and relief.

And something else. Something...different, darker, not unpleasant, that hit her so hard she had to leave the room and collect herself.

When they cleared the table and Peeta set the night’s dessert cakes in front of them—so many cakes, even with Gale’s ferocious appetite they still could barely eat them all—Katniss said, “I think we should open a bottle of wine.”

So they did.

An hour later, Gale and Peeta shoved the dining table against the wall to make room for dancing. Katniss watched at first, perched on a chair in the corner. Gale spun Peeta around, and despite his limp and tipsiness, he hadn’t lost an ounce of his grace. They laughed and laughed, and Katniss couldn’t tell what she loved more: each of them or the love they created together.

Peeta eventually pulled Katniss to the center of the room. She rolled her eyes before joining in, smiling so easy that it didn’t feel heavy like it used to. They’d fought together once, as a team, as one. Dancing was much the same, but joyous, blissful.

She was more tipsy than she thought. When the music stopped, she pulled Gale in by the shirt for a kiss. Simple, sweet, platonic—she’d kissed him this way before, as a gesture of intimate friendship, because she’d never been good with words and she didn’t know how else to show him she loved him. All forgiven, she still loved him, and still needed him to know.

Gale kissed her back, smiling, and they broke apart to see Peeta grinning at them in the same way he had the sugar Gale brought when he first moved in.

For the third time, Peeta said, “Tell us what you want, Katniss.” This time he asked knowing that Katniss had an answer, because their problem was finally solved, their missing piece found.

Gale had his big, strong arm around her waist. Peeta held her hand.

She looked between them and said, “I want to watch.”

Peeta looked to Gale in question, who replied, “Obviously I’m in.”

Then Peeta kissed him, not like Katniss did, but deeper. Neither of them let go of her, and she watched as Gale bit at Peeta’s lower lip, as Peeta ran his hands through Gale’s hair.

The dark feeling came back. Katniss worried her lip between her teeth and felt the temperature of the room rise exponentially.

They let go of her so Gale could lift Peeta into his arms, Peeta’s legs wrapped around his waist, and they ambled toward the stairwell, barely breaking apart to stumble up the steps into Peeta’s bedroom.

Katniss followed, laughing at their eagerness, excited like she hadn’t been since she was a child. In the bedroom, Gale tossed Peeta on the bed and pulled off his shirt. Peeta sat up to do the same.

Katniss settled in a chair in the corner. Her face felt hot. Her stomach flipped like it did when planes landed. A pressure built between her legs, but it felt better to keep it at bay than give into it.

Once every few months or so, she touched herself, in the shower or alone in bed. She liked to build intricate, elaborate scenes for herself, watch them play out in her mind’s eye before she relented to them. She imagined Peeta, mostly; his face as he came, the way his body tensed, the sounds he made. Sometimes she imagined Gale too, but less often, out of guilt and loyalty to Peeta.

It filled her with joy to see them touching, after years of bottled-up fear that she would hurt Gale by choosing Peeta and vice versa. She wondered, too, if part of her disdain for Gale involved pushing him away in order to ease her own guilt. She loved both of them so much—the biggest ache of all was the knowledge that she could never give either of them what they wanted. They seemed to want so much of her, and she could give back so little.

But she could give them this. Each other.

And without sacrifice, because she wanted this too, just as much as they did, now that it was unfolding in front of her.

Gale trailed kisses down the center of Peeta’s chest while he thumbed open the fly of his pants and reached in, palming Peeta’s erection. Peeta’s head fell back to the mattress, and he let out a moan that aroused Katniss so intensely that she had to stifle her own gasp. She throbbed between her legs. Her underwear slid around as she shifted in the chair, sending a jolt of pleasure up her body.

Gale made his way downward, until he’d pulled Peeta out of his shorts—thick, hard, like Katniss’s memory of it the few times she’d watched him bring himself off—and licked him, taking him in his mouth.

Peeta arched into him, one hand in Gale’s hair and the other fisted in the covers.

Katniss reached the end of her rope. She slid her hand into her pants, loose on her because they were Peeta’s pajamas, and ran a finger up and down the outside of her underwear. It felt damp—soaked, even. The single light touch of her fingertips made her pulse in want of more friction.

Peeta’s breath sped up, body tensing. Katniss recognized the signs, but she didn’t want this to be over yet.

It was a credit to Gale that he didn’t either, and lifted off to kiss Peeta again, Peeta’s body visibly relaxing as he moaned into Gale’s mouth. Gale didn’t make a sound, even as Peeta pulled at the fly of his pants and took him in hand.

Gale gasped against Peeta’s lips, thrust his narrow hips into his fist. They comprised a pile of roped muscle, soft at the middles from days and days of excess dessert. Were it not for the scars that dotted both of their bodies, Katniss would think they’d come from another world, one filled with luxury.

The heat that rolled over her body was the ultimate luxury—split seconds of pleasure in a lifetime of pain. She shifted her underwear to the side, slid her fingers between curls of hair and swollen, parted lips; wetting her fingers at her entrance before circling them above, nub hardened, slicker than she’d ever felt herself.

Gale took them both in one of his massive hands and stroked them together, Gale slightly larger, both of them wide. Peeta put his hand on top, and Katniss watched as they glided against one another, the perfect view as beads of fluid dripped out of them. They moved silhouetted against the dim lamplight, perfectly rhythmic, Peeta’s chest and the tops of his cheeks pink with arousal.

Peeta began tensing up again. Katniss felt herself tense with him, listened to his hitched groans and had to stifle her own. She pushed her fingers harder against herself, so soaked she worried she might leave a stain in Peeta’s pants.

“I’m—” Peeta began. They stopped kissing, Gale hovering over Peeta, breathing each other’s air.

Their eyes met and Gale nodded in reassurance. He moved his wrist, a fraction of a twist, and Peeta cried out. Fluid pulsed out of him, hitting his stomach and chest.

Katniss bit her lip so hard she tasted copper on her tongue. She forced her own sounds down, stomach tensed, keeping herself on the brink.

Gale sped up, Peeta still groaning loudly, scrabbling at his shoulders. Body poised, breath held, Gale shuddered with an exhale as he came all over their fists.

It pushed Katniss over the edge. She put a hand over her mouth to muffle her shout, coming onto her own fingers, making a mess of herself. It felt so good that her vision blurred at the edges and she didn’t even care that Gale and Peeta were looking at her. It lasted for an eternity, tiny peaks of pleasure fading before spiking up again, until finally they waned.

Gale rolled off of Peeta, breathless, broad chest heaving. Peeta cleaned them off. Katniss let her head loll back onto the chair while she caught her breath.

Before she could open her eyes again, Gale had her in his arms and carried her to the bed, dropped her so that she bounced a little. He laughed when she glared up at him, not having to say aloud that she didn’t need carried anywhere, despite how wobbly her knees felt. Peeta pulled the covers out from under her and slid into bed. Gale got in on the other side, turned her so her back was to his chest. Peeta's legs tangled with hers like they slept most nights, but two sets of arms held her this time. Gale kissed her shoulder while Peeta kissed her lips. He tasted like Gale.

She slept better than she ever had before.

⇶

Peeta laughed when Katniss started appropriating Gale’s clothes. They were bigger and warmer and made her feel small. Katniss walked in on Peeta and Gale kissing more often than she didn’t. Sometimes she joined, sometimes she made an exasperated noise and busied herself elsewhere. The library renovations finished, but instead of continuing work on another project, Gale—under the guise that he was the only one who understood the book filing system—became the librarian.

They maintained their easy routine until spring, when Gale and Peeta took a trip to District 2 to submit a request for plans to rebuild Peeta’s bakery.

Spring and summer held long days and short nights where they worked tirelessly on the bakery. Katniss took over caring for the house so that Peeta could work. By the end of summer, they were ready for the grand opening.

Katniss, for the first time in over three years, openly went into town.

It was nothing like she expected—no one threw anything at her or called her a murderer, nor did anyone get on their knees for her or give her the Mockingjay sign. They all smiled and nodded. Some shook her hand and thanked her for her service. Some gave her hugs.

She helped Peeta at the bakery the first few months, until they made enough revenue to hire employees. Some days their stock went so quickly they had to close early.

When the new schoolhouse opened, the District leader came to visit Katniss and ask if she would like to be the teacher of a class called Citizenship. She said no, at first. There was nothing she could teach. She had no words left to say.

It took weeks of coaxing, but Gale and Peeta convinced her. She never wanted children, but it turned out she enjoyed borrowing others’ for a few hours a day, watching them grow over the span of a school year, just as she’d enjoyed watching Prim grow. Like welcoming Gale into their lives, establishing a new sense of duty felt like another missing piece found among the ruins.

They had their bad days; emotional scars presented themselves in tears and nightmares. They helped each other through it, knew what to say and not to say, when to comfort or keep distant. They comprised a stool that stood steadier on three legs instead of two.

**Author's Note:**

> So, it's not that I dislike the ending of Mockingjay. I'm sure the canon epilogue is like super symbolic of some big something something. But I don't want an intellectually resonant epilogue. I want an IC ending free of jealousy-laden loose endings. No fucking floral print dresses and babies. Shit.
> 
> Anyway, this fic was borne of seeing the second Mockingjay movie this week. I whispered something about shipping Peeta and Gale. My friend said, "How could you ship them? The only thing they have in common is Katniss."
> 
> To which I glared at her and replied, "That's good enough for me."
> 
> My apologies for canon inconsistencies. It's been five years since I read the books and the only movie fresh in my mind is Mockingjay 2. 
> 
> Fic beta'd by [habitat](http://www.habitatfordeanwinchester.tumblr.com).
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](http://www.bettydays.tumblr.com) or [twitter](http://www.twitter.com/betty_days).


End file.
